Over the course of his storied career as a designer and educator, Dr. D’Wayne Edwards has created more than 500 footwear styles for premier entertainers such as Tupac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, and Notorious B.I.G. His designs have been worn in six Olympics and graced all MLB, NFL, and NBA stadiums. He joins to talk about his remarkable career and current role as President of Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design.
Debbie Millman:
It’s not every kid who says to themselves, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a footwear designer.” Well, D’Wayne Edwards did. At 19 years old, he became the youngest professional footwear designer in the industry. More than 30 years later, he’s an award-winning, celebrated designer who has created over 500 styles of sneakers for the likes of Derek Jeter and Michael Jordan. He’s worked for many of the biggest brands, including Nike. Now, D’Wayne Edwards is also an educator. In 2010, he founded Pensole, the first academy in the country, specifically focused on the design of footwear and now, runs the HBCU Pensole Lewis College of Design and Business in Detroit, Michigan. D’Wayne Edwards, welcome to Design Matters.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Thank you very much. I’m very excited to be here and looking forward to the conversation.
Debbie Millman:
Thank you. Me too. I want to ask, is it true that you are from two cities of champions?
D’Wayne Edwards:
I am, believe it or not, two cities … from the city of Champions, twice 2200 miles apart from each other. One born in Joliet, Illinois and then raised in Inglewood, California. Both are city of champions.
Debbie Millman:
Your mom moved you and your five siblings by herself from Illinois to California. She moved you to Inglewood when you were three months old, and you’ve talked about how she thought she was moving you all to a better city because Joliet was pretty rough, but Inglewood was worse. In what way?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Well, I think the first part that was better was the weather. So I think she was looking at the weather first and then, just our environment that we were growing up in Joliet. Inglewood was different than Joliet. Inglewood is where really the rise of street gangs really started to become popular in the 70s and 80s. So, that was what she moved us into. She didn’t know, she was really just trying to create a better environment for us and California was going to do that for us.
Debbie Millman:
You and your two older brothers, Michael and Ronnie, were all born with a gift to draw, and your family knew about your talent because you drew all the time, but I read that you hid it from other people. Why were you keeping it a secret?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Well, I mean, at that point, growing up in a city like Inglewood, it wasn’t … drawing or being an artist wasn’t a cool thing that you did. So, I just kind of kept it to myself because I knew people wouldn’t necessarily understand, but that was my sanctuary. That was my opportunity to just disconnect and be creative. So I played sports, which I loved as well. That was also my sanctuary as well, but art was really the space where I was able to zone out and kind of really feel like myself.
Debbie Millman:
You drew your first sneaker when you were 11 years old, and you’ve written about how drawing sneakers then became your obsession. What kinds of sneakers were you drawing, were they original drawings of sneakers that you were imagining or were they realistic drawings of sneakers that already existed?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Initially, it was images of sneakers that currently existed. I just wanted to draw anything … I could draw, anything I could see. So, I started drawing sneakers that I wanted to buy myself, that I couldn’t. So, that became my hobby of really … and fascination really was drawing sneakers that I wanted and then, in high school, started imagining my versions of sneakers that were not available in stores. So if I got a chance to design a shoe for Nike or if I got a chance to design a shoe for Jordan, it would look like this.
Debbie Millman:
You also started buying your own sneakers and then, dying and customizing them so they’d be different from anyone else’s. What kind of designs were you making and do you still have any of those sneakers?
D’Wayne Edwards:
I wish I still had some of those things, but this was the 80s, this is the mid 80s, early 80s. My high school colors were green and white, and back in the 80s, sneakers didn’t come in green and white. They came in white, white-white, white-black, maybe white-silver. So I just wanted sneakers to match my basketball uniform. So I would go to a store that used to be called Builders Emporium. It was a precursor to Home Depot and go get my duct tape and X-Acto blades and then, I would go to the local shoe repair shop and get my green dye. Then, I would just tape up everything I did not want dyed. Dyed my shoes up and then, went to school and people were just freaking out because I had shoes they’d never seen before.
When you’re in high school, when you get that type of attention because of anything that you have on, you want to wear more of that thing, so that became my sneaker addiction. That was when it started, was when I was able to get people’s attention by having shoes that they never saw before.
Debbie Millman:
I read that when you were 12, you started to enter magazine competitions where you were asked to draw a turtle or a pirate. I remember doing that too when I was a kid. They were ads in the TV guide and so, I did a little bit of research to remind myself where they were advertising from. The ad was for art instruction schools, which is a Minneapolis based correspondence course. You mailed in your drawing and won a scholarship. When they found out you were 12, they stopped reviewing your submissions. I read that just winning gave you confidence and because I did this research, I found out that Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, also won a scholarship to go there, and he actually went. That’s where he continued to learn how to draw. He’s their most famous alum. So I guess those ads really worked. We both submitted and so did he.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good company to be in. That’s great. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
So Tippy, the Turtle was the name of the turtle that they asked you to draw. After drawing Tippy, you went on to drawing baseball and football cards, and I read that you first started drawing those types of cards because they always cut players off at the knees and you wanted to see their feet and their sneakers.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yup and my first time I saw the cleats were a 1981 Franco Harris football card and he was wearing pony cleats. It was just … for me, they were the biggest things on the card. So, that started my fascination with just trying to correctly draw the shape and proportion of your foot and cleats. That’s really the hardest part. It’s not so much the cosmetic visual, it’s the actual accuracy of the shape.
Debbie Millman:
Why is that so difficult?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Because the human foot is not the same shape any way you turn it. So it’s not symmetrical at all. So, you have to be very precise with every shape and every contour. It took me a few tries to get it right, but that was really my fascination with accuracy in trying to draw exactly what I saw instead of an interpretation of what I saw.
Debbie Millman:
So what were you doing with these cards? Were you showing them to people? Were you just saving them for yourself? Were you sharing them with your brothers?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Well, first of all, I stole them from my mom. So they were flash cards that she would use and recipe cards that she would use. So, I would just start to collect them and just have my own little stack of my own little portfolio, so to speak. All through high school, that was the same way I drew. I just drew on these three by five and Knicks cards on the … because one side had lines on it and the other side was clean and plain. So I would just draw on the clean side and then, on the backside I would date it and write my inspiration on the backside of it.
Debbie Millman:
Incredible. Please tell me you have these cards, please.
D’Wayne Edwards:
I don’t have one. I do not have one.
Debbie Millman:
D’Wayne, that just destroys me.
D’Wayne Edwards:
I wish I had them. I remember many times I was caught in math class, drawing shoes when I should have been doing work, and my seventh grade math teacher, Mrs. Weathers, she made a deal with me. She says, “Hey, if you do your homework on time or do your classwork on time, you could draw sneakers.” Whenever I didn’t do it, she would take the sneakers from me and keep them in her desk drawer, and many years after I graduated from high school, I went back to see her and she still had some of my sketches in her desk drawer.
Debbie Millman:
Good.
D’Wayne Edwards:
I mean we’re talking 10 years later and she would not give them to me. She made me sign them and she would not give me one of them. I begged her, which I was able to get one.
Debbie Millman:
Well, maybe you should reach out again or maybe at least she can take some photos of them for you. I know that when you were in school you tried to get a job at Foot Locker so you could get a discount, but they wouldn’t hire you. Instead, you got your first job at McDonald’s when you were 16 years old. Did you work all through high school?
D’Wayne Edwards:
All through high school?
Debbie Millman:
And I read that while you were still in school, you met with your guidance counselor after you decided you wanted to become a sneaker designer. You supremely excited at the time because you thought you figured out your life at 17 years old.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yup.
Debbie Millman:
Can you share it with my listeners what the guidance counselor told you?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah, it’s your senior year and you have to start taking things seriously, so you can graduate and move on to college. I knew I wasn’t going to attend college because I’m the youngest of six kids raised by a single parent, but I was like, “Hey, I can at least try to get into a college.” So I was really excited. The sneaker thing was going really well for me. I was customizing not only my own sneakers but my friend’s sneakers at school. So that became a little bit of a side hustle for me in high school. One day, I was like, “Hey, let me go talk to my counselor because her job is to help me figure out life after high school.” So I go and really excited because I’m clear on what I want to do.
I said, hey … her name is Ms. Wilson Jefferson. I said, “Hey, I would like to speak to you about the fact that I finally figured out what I want to do. I want to become a footwear designer.” She pauses and looks at me, dead straight in the face and says, “D’Wayne, no Black kid from Inglewood would ever become a footwear designer? What are you thinking? You need to come back and share with me something that’s more practical. Have you ever thought about joining the military or have you thought about continuing on at McDonald’s,” and I was deflated, disappointed. Her rationale and reasoning was partly getting out of the city alive, was a goal, right?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
D’Wayne Edwards:
As a Black male, growing up in Inglewood in the 80s, getting to 18 and I’m still alive and not in jail is a success. Making it to 21 is almost a miracle. So, that was part of her message, but it wasn’t the type of guidance I was expecting.
Debbie Millman:
Shortly thereafter, you were looking at the want ads in the Los Angeles Times in an effort to get what you considered a more respectable job than the one at McDonald’s. At that point, were you thinking about going to college at all or was that just completely off the table?
D’Wayne Edwards:
No, it was off the table. One thing that Ms. Wilson Jefferson did for me though was she allowed me to create a thank you wall, of people who countless times told me I wasn’t going to do anything and I wasn’t going to be this or I wasn’t going to be that. I was literally at lunch, in my lunch break, at work, looking for another job, and there I saw the biggest ad I’ve ever seen in my life, even though it was the smallest ad you can place in the LA Times, and it was for a sneaker design competition that Reebok was hosting. Reebok at the time had an office in Santa Monica, California. They’re a Boston, Massachusetts based brand, but their entertainment office had a competition and I entered, it was basically … it was so small, it just had Reebok design competition and a phone number.
So I called the phone number to get the mailing address to send my actual submission. So I drew my versions of what Reebok should look like and about a month later, I get a phone call and they said, come meet us at the Reebok offices in Santa Monica. I show up, excited because they didn’t tell me if I won or lost, but I figured it was some good news. So, I go and catch the bus for an hour to Santa Monica and they were a little surprised that a 17-year old Black kid shows up and they were like, “Well, the good news is you are talented and you won our competition, but the bad news is you’re too young to work for us.” They said, “Come back and see us after you graduate from college.” That was deflating because I knew I wasn’t going to college.
So Reebok was also added to my thank you wall, because I was like, I legitimately won this competition and you discriminated against me because I’m young and Black and 17, and not understanding companies have rules and regulations, but I was just angry.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
D’Wayne Edwards:
I was happy, disappointed, angry, all at the same time. I promised myself if I ever became a footwear designer, I would take it out on Reebok and make them regret that they passed on me at 17 years old.
Debbie Millman:
I’m sure they do now. You mentioned the thank you wall and the thank you wall is a collection of things that have both inspired you and also discouraged you.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
How has that sort of acknowledgement on the wall helped you understand both the encouragement as well as the obstacles?
D’Wayne Edwards:
I believe whenever you have people that tell you, you’re not going to do something or discourages you, you have two options, either you believe them or not. Then, you have the option of using it as fuel to prove them wrong or you can disappear in your own world. I chose to acknowledge it and I chose to use it as motivation because I wanted to prove something to those people that they shouldn’t talk to young kids like that. So, I developed a chip on my shoulder and I think when you have a chip one way or another, it makes you work harder and it makes you do things with more intent than you would have if someone didn’t necessarily do it, which is strange, right? You would think that you get all this support and encouragement, you’ll be more motivated to do it.
I had that on one side, but then I also had the negativity on the other side that outweighed the positivity because again, I’m in the 80s in Inglewood. I’m not seeing success that looks like me, so I’m not seeing the probability of me being successful or doing something. So I started to use the thank you wall as motivation because I wanted to get out of my surroundings and get out of my environment, and what really hit home was shortly after I turned 17, my brother Michael passed away in a car accident.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
D’Wayne Edwards:
So, when I saw him pass away and his gift, he never got a chance to really fulfill using the gift that he was born with. That really also woke me up as well, where I wanted to start taking life a bit more seriously because that was the awakening that it wasn’t … tomorrow wasn’t promised to you.
Debbie Millman:
Meanwhile, your manager at McDonald’s wanted to promote you to a swing manager and was encouraging you to have your own franchise one day. Was that ever, ever something that sounded appealing to you?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Maybe for about 15 minutes. There were conversations that’s sending me to Hamburger University in Chicago, Illinois, which is McDonald’s training program. Again, I’m 17 years old and that’s not what I wanted my future to look like, if it was a backup plan maybe, but I just couldn’t see it as my future. So I used her also, she was added to my thank you wall, because she was like, “Why are you going to try to become an artist, artist are always broke and you’re not going to become an artist, you’re not going to have a good living. You can make a great living here at McDonald’s doing this, and I’m not knocking anyone who works at McDonald’s and there’s been amazing Black franchisees over the years. That just wasn’t my future that I saw. I needed her though to make sure I didn’t go on that path, right?
So I wanted to make sure I proved her wrong as well, and if you notice, and I’m super competitive and I still use it to this day, the one thing you tell me is something I can’t do, and you just started something.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, but your mom also … I mean, it’s interesting she gave you a card after you weren’t able to start at Reebok, that I know went on your thank you wall. That was a greeting card that she bought you, that was about believing in yourself.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
And I can only imagine … I know she’s no longer with us now, but I can only imagine that she really wanted you to sort follow your passion.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Even if that meant not being as secure or as stable as she would’ve wanted you to be, financially.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah, the timing of that was right after my Reebok conversation, and shortly after my brother passed because I was just down and out, right? Again, I’m 17 years old, thinking my life is over and everything and yes, she went shopping and she brought me this 25 cent card and I can read it to you if you like.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
D’Wayne Edwards:
It says, believe, really big up top. It says, “Believe in yourself and the power you have to control your own life day to day, believe in the strength that you have deep inside and your faith will help show you the way. Believe in tomorrow and what it will bring. Let a hopeful heart carry you through, for things will work out. If you trust and believe there are no limits to what you can do.” I believe there, and I use that as fuel and every day, since she brought me that card, I’ve always carried that card with me. Every time I’m going to speak somewhere or I feel like I need a little extra something, I have it in my pocket. It’s also a card that I give all of my students when they complete our programs. So they do know at least one person believes in their abilities and who they are because that little bit of power can take someone off a long way.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. I had a teacher in college that was really the first person that gave me the sense that maybe I was smart. She believed in me, she believed in my intelligence, and it changed my life. It changed how I felt about myself. It changed what I thought I could do. You said that while you were working at McDonald’s, you learned that you weren’t just working at this one McDonald’s in Torrance, California. You were working at a big brand and they expected you to behave a certain way. What did this teach you?
D’Wayne Edwards:
So today, I guess in today’s terms, the kids would call it code switching, I guess. For me, I called it just knowing how to behave in the environments that you’re in, where I couldn’t show up to work with my clothes unironed and shirt untucked and you have to look presentable. I was able to make it to what’s called swing manager, which is an assistant manager. So I got to wear a button-up and a clip on tie. So, I had to look presentable because I was representing the restaurant. So, that taught me a certain level of personal responsibility for my appearance because it wasn’t just me, I was being accountable for, it was also this establishment that was counting on me and paying me to look presentable and be polite to customers, even if you have a bad day, right?
When you’re in the service business, especially an organization like McDonald’s, even if you have a bad day, the customer is always right. So, it did teach me that level of discipline and structure, even at a high school level, of just how to properly carry myself and conduct myself and speak to people that I didn’t know and people that maybe didn’t like me because they had a bad experience at the store, but I had to still present myself in a certain way to make sure I was giving off the proper brand representation that McDonald’s wanted me to project out.
Debbie Millman:
Shortly thereafter, you got a job working as a temporary file clerk in the accounts payable department of LA Gear.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
The popular footwear brand, LA gear. How did you get that job?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah, what’s funny is upon graduating from high school, I didn’t go to college. My friends … Me and my friend decided to sign up for this temp agency called Robert Half and Accountemps. He actually received the assignment to go to LA Gear first, but he didn’t want to work in Marina del Ray, which is where they were located. So he told the agency, he couldn’t find the place and so they were like, “Okay, well then you go.” So they sent me because he didn’t want to go. So, I found it because it was a sneaker company. Now, it wasn’t Nike, but it was still a sneaker company. I wasn’t in design, I was in accounts payable, right? So for me, I was like, “Well, I’m here. Let me see if I can try to get a job as a footwear designer.” This is in 1988. So no email, no social media, no internet. It was pretty much everything was hands-on.
Debbie Millman:
Right.
D’Wayne Edwards:
So, here I am filing my papers and filing all my receipts in alphabetical order. One day the company decided they want to increase morale. So, they installed these wooden suggestion boxes in every department with the idea of the employees dropping suggestions in the box that would help give the company new insights into what they should do different and what they should do better, how the employees could be better treated at the organization. As a non-full-time employee, I wasn’t told, I wasn’t able supposed to participate. So I decided to participate in my way, which was my three by five index cards.
I’m drawing shoes that I think LA Gear should do. So I would drop them in the suggestion box every morning before I go off and start filing my papers. About six months in, I hear this loud message over the intercom system. Again, there’s no email, so back then if someone wanted you in the company, the entire company found out.
Debbie Millman:
It’s like going to the principal’s office.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Pretty much, yes. So, I hear one day like, “D’Wayne Edwards report to the president’s office,” and I’m just like, “Wait, did I just hear that correctly first?” Because I’m invisible. I’m a temp employee, how does the president even know who I am? So, I reluctantly go to the president’s office and immediately walk in and apologize because I assumed it was because of what I’ve been doing to this box. He tells me to sit down and he said, are you the person who’s been putting shoe sketches in my suggestion box? I’m just like. “Yeah, I’m sorry, my apologies. I didn’t mean to do that. I just love to draw and I figured somebody would see it and maybe give me some tips on how I can become a designer one day.” He was like, “Well, I’ll tell you what,” he pulled out all 180 of my sketches, he had 180 of my cards.
He said, “I admire your ambition.” He said, “I would love to give you a chance to be a professional footwear designer. Would you be willing to accept an entry level footwear design job?” I was like, “Well, yes. How much do I have to pay you for this job, because this is definitely my dream job.” He goes, “Well, tell me a little bit more about yourself.” He’s like, “Tell me what college did you graduate from?” I was like, “Man, I just graduate from Inglewood High School seven months ago.” He was like, “Wait, you’re in high school?” I was like, “Yeah, I just left seven months ago.” He was like, “So you did this with no formal training at all?” I was like, “Yeah, I just love to draw. I’ve been drawing sneaker since I was 12.” He was even more impressed by the fact that I had no training at all.
So he offered me my job. So he said after the New year, report to the design department. So, I turned 19 in December and January, I reported in to my design job.
Debbie Millman:
You were the only Black kid there and you’ve talked about how some people were resentful and thought that you were a charity case kid, but when you heard that, you responded, “All right, that’s cool. I’ll take it. How did you have that sort of generosity of spirit?” I mean, I’m assuming they went up on your thank you wall, but what gave you the sense that it was … what gave you the strength to be kind about it?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Well, yes, they did become members of my thank you wall, so they were added. Honestly, it was me learning about Jackie Robinson. So, when I was in high school, I started looking into just sports and Black history, and I found a book on Jackie Robinson, it’s called, “I Never Had It Made.” The CliffNote version of his story is Jackie Robinson was selected to be the first Black baseball player to play in the major leagues. He wasn’t the best player, so back then, when we weren’t allowed to play in professional sports, we had our own leagues. So there was a league called the Negro Leagues that was found in 1920. It was a collection of some of the best Black baseball players to play, but they weren’t allowed to play in the professional major leagues.
So Branch Rickey, who was the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers selected Jackie and they selected Jackie because Jackie was a military man. He was a college graduate. He went to UCLA. He was the only and probably still, probably one of the only college athletes to letter in four sports. Baseball was his worst sport. So, he ended up becoming the first one, but it was told that Branch Rickey selected Jackie because he had the temperament needed to succeed. A part of his contract was that he was not allowed to fight back. He was not allowed to talk back. He had to take the abuse that he was going to receive, and he felt he was the right person that would be able to do that.
So, when I read his story and then, there was a movie that he played and I found the movie and I understood that if Jackie talked back, it would’ve taken years before other Black ball players would’ve had a chance to be in the major leagues because that was the goal. The goal was for the players to piss off these guys, to prove that they didn’t belong. So, I really understood Jackie’s temperament and I understood that, “Hey, I need to be a certain way. It was my McDonald’s training as a swing manager. I needed to be a certain way in this environment that I was in, and I had to put off a different aura than what they expected of me.” So that was really … really the mindset was keep my mouth shut and ask questions when I needed to understand, but soak up as much knowledge as possible.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that you forced your way into the world of Robert Greenberg, a white Jewish man who gave a 19 year old Black kid from Inglewood, with no college education, opportunity to design shoes for his company. What was the biggest thing you learned from him?
D’Wayne Edwards:
He didn’t discriminate against me. He didn’t care what I looked like. He didn’t care where I came from. He just saw someone with talent that he wanted to leverage for his company, to make his company better. He was my first professional mentor. For me, it was something that I value still to this day. I mean, before COVID, I would see Robert twice a year in Las Vegas at a trade show, and I would tell him “Thank you,” because he didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to give me a chance to prove that I belonged to be there. So, I really spent my whole career making sure he understood, “Hey, I appreciated what he did,” but also that he didn’t … make sure he knew he didn’t make a mistake, and that was really the beginning of my mentorship as a mentor to mentor other people.
That’s why when we have our mentor moments and we have our students, I put it on my students, you have to mentor two people and you make sure they mentor two people, because if it wasn’t for Robert, seeing just raw talent and challenging me to elevate up in this environment that I was going to be outnumbered in and uncomfortable in, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you to this day.
Debbie Millman:
Talk about your race to beat him into the office in the mornings.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. So for me, I started studying him. So, whenever I would come in and he was always there and I would go by his office and see him reading the newspaper and talking into his Dictaphone. So, I’m like, “All right, cool. I’m going to try to get here before he does.” So for five days, it took me to beat him into work one day, and it was 5:30 where I got there at five, and he got there at 5:30. He was like, “What are you doing here?” I’m like, “I just want to come in when you come in so I can understand what do you do in the morning? Why do you come in so early?” He was like, “All right, well, come and sit with me.” So I sat with him and I saw his routine.
He would provide information for himself by reading the Wall Street Journal, reading footwear news, getting business insights, getting industry insights. He would then talk into his Dictaphone and talk about his day. He would outline, these are all the things I want to accomplish today, and he would give it to his executive assistant and she would type it out and put it on his desk. He would go about his day, checking off everything on his list. So, I started doing the same thing. For me, I would do it with post-it notes. I would write on the post-it notes, stick it on my desk so I could see it. I didn’t have an executive assistant. So I just post-it notes. That’s how I start my day, every day. I mean, still to this day, I wake up, I read information about the industry, read information about just life, in general.
I read inspirational quotes, I share those inspirational quotes and then, I have my to-do list and then, I check my email. I have a set routine that I do every single day, ever since I was 19 years old.
Debbie Millman:
You were the youngest footwear designer in the industry, the youngest Black footwear designer in the industry. After two years as a designer at LA Gear, you moved to Detroit to work for a small footwear company, but then Robert became the owner of Skechers and he asked you to join him his as head designer back in LA. What was that like for you to become head designer at that point?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Well, I mean, it was really a culmination of me soaking up knowledge from everybody that was around me. So my first few years at LA Gear was like my college, so to speak, but I was doing it in real time, as a real job. As you said, I did move to Detroit first time ever, I saw snow at 24 years old. So again, grow up in LA, an LA kid. So I never saw snow before. That lasted 10 months and I moved back to LA but the position was special because before I left, I was telling Robert, I said, “Hey, there’s some guys downtown LA that are really doing some really amazing things on the apparel side.” And I said, “If you ever get a chance to work with these guys, you should really consider it.” Those guys were two companies.
One of it was called Cross Colours, and the other one was called Karl Kani. They were the pioneers of streetwear fashion. What these kids see today, they pioneered this in the late 80s, early 90s, downtown LA. So, Robert received the licensing rights to do footwear for those two companies. So that’s what he wanted me to come back to LA and head up, to be the head of designing footwear for Cross Colours and Karl Kani. The blessing with that was here I am, I’m 24 years old and I’m designing shoes for these guys who are younger than me, by the name of Tupac and by the name of Notorious B.I.G. and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg and Puffy, and not knowing that these would become hip hop royalty, right?
I was just as young as they were, but here I am in the middle of it, working with these amazing, talented artists. For me, that was really the jump start for me to really advocate for more Black designers because I didn’t see any. In my whole time at LA Gear, I didn’t see anyone else that looked like me, but me and the design team. When I got to Skechers and I was working with these guys on the apparel side, I was seeing all these Black designers on the apparel side, still not seeing any on the footwear side. So, that really is what started my quest to diversify the footwear industry, was I need more people sitting next to me so I can teach and develop and grow folks, so we could diversify this industry.
Debbie Millman:
You launched your own brand under the Skecher’s corporate umbrella, and I believe it was called SITY, S-I-T-Y?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yup.
Debbie Millman:
Sporting goods business ranked your line as the number two brand to look out for behind the Jordan brand.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Is that what first interested Nike in your talents or you went to Nike, you joined Nike as a senior designer in 2000 and then, in 2001 joined Jordan as a design director. How did you go from Skechers to Nike?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah, so the license expired when he was licensing Cross Colours and Karl Kani footwear and he asked, “Well, what do you want to do now?” And I was like, “Well, I’ve traveled all over the world and I noticed that style is different in other countries and is different even in other states.” I said, “I would love to create at my own brand called SITY, with the S standing for style and using the influencers from different cities globally as the way that we would design the brand. He supported it, he backed it. It was under Skechers. As you said, it did really well, the first year in sporting because business does all these trend forecasts. They placed us as number two behind Jordan brand. Shortly after that happened, Skechers started the process of going public.
When they wanted to go public, they started to make the books look better, right? So they start to divest smaller things in the organization to clean things up. I was one of things that they divested in. Simultaneously, when that ranking came out, Nike was looking for someone to help them compete with Timberland to make boots because Nike was an athletic shoe company and they didn’t really know how to make lifestyle boots. I was doing that already for years under the SITY brand, but also under Karl Kani and Cross Colours. So, a friend of mine who ironically worked at Adidas in Portland, told his friend who worked at Nike about me and he was like, “Hey, you should probably get this guy up here for an interview.”
So they brought me up for an interview and I remember I had eight interviews in one day, which they didn’t do that anymore.
Debbie Millman:
I think they do. From what I know, there’s a lot of interviewing, it takes a lot of okays.
D’Wayne Edwards:
I did it all in one day and they were like, “Well, we will give you a call back in two weeks.” Two weeks to the day, I got a phone call from Nike and I accepted the job as a footwear designer for their lifestyle division. Then, two hours later, I got another call from Nike, offering me another job from another category. So I got two phone calls in the same day for two jobs, but I accepted the first one that called me. So, that was how I moved to Oregon. I mean, for me, the real opportunity was this is the best company. I need to gauge my skills against the best who work at that company too. That was really the driving force for me, moving to Oregon was, “Okay, I’m going to be next to the best. I mean, where do I stack up in that equation?”
Then, after a year at Nike, the Jordan brand was on the fourth floor where I was at, and they had an open position and they asked me to join. So, then I transferred from Nike to Jordan Brand.
Debbie Millman:
Now, you were stacking up against the best in the business. How did you feel you measured?
D’Wayne Edwards:
I’m not a conceited person at all, so I’ll say this with that preference, but yes, I thought I was better.
Debbie Millman:
Okay.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Primarily, I would say because I didn’t have a popular logo to work with and because they had a logo that everyone loved, you could put that logo on almost anything and it would make the shoe look better, right? So, I learned how to design without having the luxury of a logo to fall back on. So I had to pay more attention to design and give you something more interesting to look at. So I would just say from that perspective, I think I was just taught a different way. So when I was able to marry that creativity with a strong brand, the things that I did design kind of connected the dots completely for me, but at the same time, I’m there learning from all these amazing people that have had a 10, 20 year head start on me too. I was just as much of a student as I was as a professional.
Debbie Millman:
When you started with the Jordan brand, they were a 275 million dollar brand.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
You helped grow it to a 1.3 billion brand.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
And you said you put pressure on yourself by thinking that you were always the underdog.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
Why?
D’Wayne Edwards:
I’ve always felt that … I still feel that way. I mean, I always do. I think because I’ve never let success go to my head, I look at the word success as a past tense word, where it’s something that happened already and I shouldn’t be dwelling on stuff that happened already. When you work at Nike, you’re wired to focus on the future and you’re wired to think two and three and four years ahead of time. So I was always moving forward mentally. So my mindset was always never to rest on where I was. I remember one day I did something … I had a shoe that sell really well at LA Gear and Robert one day came over and he said, “Congratulations, take five minutes off and get back to work.” I’m just like, so I’ve always had that mindset of, okay, take pause for a minute, acknowledge it and then, let it go and get back to work.
I just never been one to be stagnant and stale. I’m a constant learner. I always want to improve. I’m always trying to learn something new every day, small or big, I’m trying to always move forward. I’ve always felt like I’m not supposed to be here, and that mentality has never left me because I’m not supposed to be here, mathematically, I’m not supposed to be here and that’s never been lost on me and it’s still never lost on me to this day.
Debbie Millman:
Shortly after you got the job with the Jordan brand, your mother passed away and despite the new job, you sat with your mother for the last 30 days of her life.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
What was that like for you?
D’Wayne Edwards:
The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and the most valuable thing I’ve ever done in my life because I had a chance to be with her for her last moments and before she was unable to talk the last two weeks, I apologized to her, for leaving her because I left California to move to Oregon. She said, “Boy, if you would not have left, I would’ve beat your butt, if you didn’t go and follow your dreams.” I always felt guilty. I always felt guilty leaving her because I did miss out on three years of her life, even though I did go back home, regularly but I wasn’t there every day. I was comforted by knowing that she wanted me to be where I was. Then, as I continued to sit with her and I would talk to her and share and thank her for everything and she was able to nod and say yes, but it was tough.
If I could do it all over again, I would do it all over again. It felt like it was yesterday, but we just never had a really intimate conversations, and we did that for those 30 days.
Debbie Millman:
You said this about your mom in your TED Talk, “She took me from a problem child in Inglewood and turned me into a global problem solver. She turned my dreams into reality far beyond what I even imagined. She turned death into life for me. At the same time, she turned my destiny into a career and my career into a passion.” Were you able to tell her that before she passed?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Every single word, and more, and more.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that your relationship with your mom in that moment, in that time, made you look at your craft a little bit differently, how so?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Before my mom passed, my other brother, Ronnie passed away too.
Debbie Millman:
So you lost both your older brothers, Mike and Ronnie?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yup. Both of them passed. Both had the gift. My career became theirs, the one they never had a chance to have. My mom is the one who gave us the gift. She was the one the gift came from. So for me, I was just trying to make her proud. That was really my whole goal and still is to this day. Even though, she’s not here physically, I know she’s here with me as well as my two brothers are here with me as well, because there are times I have no idea how I made it home driving and sleepy and all these things. So I know I’m being watched over. So all of her life lessons she’s taught me, either verbally or indirectly, I paid attention to. It has shaped me for who I am today. I mean, for half of my life, when she was here, she was disabled and she never complained.
I never complained either. I don’t complain, if I’m tired. I don’t complain, if I have too much work to do. I don’t complain because she showed me what that should look like because she had every right to complain and she never did. So all of my strength I get from her.
Debbie Millman:
Over the course of your career at Nike, you developed more than 50 patents and you designed more than 500 footwear styles for artists including Tupac, Notorious, B.I.G., Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nas. Your designs had been worn in six different Olympics and have graced all major league baseball, NFL and NBA stadiums by athletes including Derek Jeter, Carmelo Anthony and Michael Jordan. What was it like collaborating with Michael Jordan?
D’Wayne Edwards:
That was the craziest thing ever. So the Lakers played in Inglewood until the last maybe 20, 25 years. They moved downtown Los Angeles, but they played in Inglewood. Me and my friends would always sneak into basketball games and we would sneak in because in Hollywood they would leave in the third quarter, beginning of third quarter. So we would just stand by the door and just slide right on it or ask them for their tickets. The last game, I snuck in was the 1991 NBA Finals, the Lakers versus the Chicago Bulls, and they won the championship. The Chicago Bulls won the championship. That was my first time ever seeing Michael Jordan play in person, and 10 years later, I was on a couch sitting next to him, showing a design to him that I designed for him.
I got forewarned by my team that I worked within Jordan that he’s hard on young players, he’s hard on young guys. He calls all of the new employees, new jacks. So they were just pumping me up and preparing me for the barrage of questions that he’s going to throw at me because he’s just that kind of guy. So he was throwing them at me and I was answering them and I was taking them as he was throwing them, I was taking them. He eventually backed down because he saw that, “Okay, you know what you’re talking about. Okay, now I’m buying what you’re selling me.” Honestly, all he was doing is just making me better at my craft. No different than what he did to his teammates on the basketball court. If you’re going to be on the floor with him, you better be ready.
You better be prepared for anything. So I would say that time, that decade spending, working with him directly and some of the other guys too, Melo and Jeter and Roy Jones, it just sharpened my skills as a creative and as a person that I instill into our students to this day. It was that edge that I learned from Jordan, compounded with my already competitive nature, adding his competitive nature on top of it, that’s where I become a problem. If you cross me and it becomes a competitive thing, it’s going to be a problem.
Debbie Millman:
You said that one thing you didn’t realize when you were working at Nike was the trap of doing something you love. What is the trap of doing something you love?
D’Wayne Edwards:
The trap is because you are a designer and you’re creative, you could do it all day long and you wake up, I mean, you realize, “Oh wow, I forgot to eat today or I should probably go to sleep because it’s dark outside.” The trap to be careful of is that you love what you do so much, that it could become unhealthy for you. You could develop stress, which I did all of those things I just mentioned to you, to the point where I was in the hospital for a few days because of just exhaustion and high blood pressure, because I put the pressure on myself to work a certain level where there’s going to be people who will be better designers than me, but I can’t ever let someone outwork me. I took that to heart and so, by doing that, it damaged me and my health a bit. I think it’s partly because I love what I do. I would do what I do for free.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
D’Wayne Edwards:
When you do something like that, you get lost doing what you do and you don’t realize you didn’t take care of yourself. Now, I have a better understanding of balance, but it’s a certain wiring that you could achieve based on your drive to be great at something, and I have that drive.
Debbie Millman:
When you were at Nike, they gave everyone four weeks off after 10 years of employment, you got that four and then, you took another four. Yeah. What did you do during that time off?
D’Wayne Edwards:
So, I took the additional four because I never took any other time off. So I had so much vacation time built up. They forced me to take it, but a few things happened. One, I resigned as design director. I was tired and my body was not good, my mind was not good, and I knew I couldn’t do that job anymore. So, I told them I was going to retire as design director, I need this time off to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life and whether I’m coming back or not, I don’t know yet. That’s the point of the sabbatical is to disconnect. So, I took the time off and I want to try this idea of a footwear design class because during my 10 year at Jordan, I would meet kids online that are high school kids or college kids that want to be in design.
And I would mentor them on the side and help them become my interns because they couldn’t get footwear design education in college. So I would just do it and teach them what I knew because that’s what I wish I would’ve had if I had the internet and if I had access to people and now, kids had access to me, it was easy to figure out my email address at Nike and so, kids would always email me. So it just kept bubbling up like, maybe I should try this teaching thing and see what happens. So, I started teaching at the University of Oregon as an adjunct instructor. That was my first time at a college, teaching and I taught this class called Pensole, and I taught it the way I worked and I taught it in the most extreme way that we would work.
It was two weeks. It was every day for two weeks, roughly 12 to 14 hours every day straight through. I wanted to put students through the extreme case of what it feels like to be a designer, not look like, but feels like to be a designer and pay for 40 students tuition and housing to be a part of this program and they loved it. They didn’t want to leave. They went back to their respective schools or their respective homes and told everybody about what happened in Portland for two weeks. The beauty of it is one student documented every day and posted it up online. So kids started following along online and after it was over, I started getting all these emails from people saying, “Hey, can you show me how to do that?”
Then, school started emailing me and say, “Hey, can you come teach this at our school?” Here I am teaching at Art Center, which is one of the top product design schools in the country. The school I later realized, I would’ve attended if I knew it was there in Pasadena, California, which is only 30 minutes away from where I grew up. I’m teaching at this prestigious number one design school in the country and then, I get a call from Parsons, one of the number one fashion design schools in the country in New York City and then MIT, one of the top engineering schools in the country in Boston. Here I am, the kid who didn’t go to college teaching at some of the best colleges in the world.
I’m teaching what I actually learned for 25 years as a designer. That was my curriculum. It wasn’t like I had this secret sauce or anything. I just taught my process and I fell back in love with design. I didn’t realize how much the corporate side took from me, the joy and I fell back in love with it, because I was basically just sharing everything that I learned and just to see these young minds embrace it and then, do something with it, I didn’t want to lose that feeling, and I didn’t want to go back into corporate America because I loved that feeling. I did go back, but I told them on my first day back that I was leaving in six months. So, I gave them a head start that I was leaving and then, I permanently retired on April 1st, 2011.
Debbie Millman:
You launched your first class, I believe, on June 24th, 2010 at the University of Oregon, as you mentioned, of the 40 kids in that class, 34 are all employed as footwear designers today.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
You, as you mentioned, started to extend the classes all over the world. Then, you acquired a recently closed HBCU, titled the Lewis College of Business in Detroit, Michigan. What made you decide to do that?
D’Wayne Edwards:
So all of my time with the academy in Portland, we were solving the diversity issue in the footwear industry. In 2020, when George Floyd was murdered and the corporation started making these pledges to support Black communities, and they started making pledges to education, and then when some of those companies started to decide, “Hey, I want to support design education,” they realized we were really the only option out there that was putting together quality education and churning out quality diverse talent. So it went from us working just with footwear companies to apparel companies, to packaging companies, to furniture design companies, to multiple areas of design. Simultaneously, I was made aware of the college in Lewis College by an alumnus of Pensole who lives in Detroit.
He casually mentioned, “Hey, I think Detroit used to have an HBCU,” but I think it closed. I’m like, “Wait, what do you mean? Detroit had an HBCU?” I’ve never heard of that before. So, once I discovered Lewis College of Business, I was first ashamed. I never heard of Violet Lewis, who was the founder of the college. She was one of three Black women to found an HBCU, of all of them since the 1860s. She started it as a secretary of school in Indianapolis because she just wanted Black women to have the ability to work in corporate offices. That was her intent, and she received a $50 loan and borrowed typewriters and started her own college. This is in 1928.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
D’Wayne Edwards:
And I’m just like, “Wow, this woman is amazing, and how do I did not know about her?” So the school did extremely well in Indianapolis and so well, Detroit offered her to open a campus in Detroit, and it became very important to the city of Detroit’s economic development around diverse talent working in corporate offices. We were in the automobile factories, but never in the corporate offices. So, all of the first Black office employees for Ford and GM and Michigan Bell were all graduates of Lewis College of Business. So, over the years, it continued to flourish and the school was caught in this weird predicament because it wasn’t well-funded enough to create new curriculum. Because they couldn’t adjust with the times, they were left behind, and when they were left behind, they were forced to close their doors.
So they closed their doors in 2013. When I heard about it and I was reading all the interviews from the family that were trying to reopen the class but they were unsuccessful, I started investigating, and on the side of the building, I saw the realtor’s name and phone number. So I called and said, “Hey, I would love to speak to the family about possibly reopening the college.” And that was how I was introduced to the family. I flew to Detroit and introduced this idea of reopening the college as a business and a design school, because HBCUs don’t have a breadth of curriculum for design. They’re fantastic institutions around law and business and engineering and entrepreneurship, but design is not one of their strongest areas.
That was our strength. Our strength married with being a historically Black college, it met the needs of the industry today. They believed in my vision and I acquired the college. We renamed the college Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design, and we reopened the college on May 2nd, 2022 here in Detroit, Michigan, but it was a little bit of a challenge to reopen the college because there was no state laws in Michigan around if a college closed and wanted to reopen, what should you do? So we had to rewrite … well, we had to write laws and so we had to write two state bills. Both bills were passed in two and a half months.
Debbie Millman:
By the governor, right?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Governor Whitmer passed them in two and a half months, which was amazing, and that cleared our path to reopen the college here in Detroit.
Debbie Millman:
In 1989, you were the youngest designer in the footwear design industry, and you were one of three people of color in the industry at that time. During your 2014 TED Talk, you stated that there were still only about 175 people of color in an industry of over 5,000 people. What do things look like now, another eight years later?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Sadly, we’re a little over 200 now, I did a talk a few months back, I chronicled the history of the Black footwear designer and the first one, I would say started 1986. His name is Wilson Smith and you fast forward 36 years later, it’s amazing how an industry would allow 3% growth. There’s nothing in a corporation that they would allow 3% growth.
Debbie Millman:
No, not a thing.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Nothing. For one quarter, either they’re going to fix it or get rid of it, but for 36 years, almost 40 years, the industry was okay with 3% growth. So, for me, the troubling part to that is that diversity is the only thing that corporations try to do and get away with it. Imagine if you have a job and you say, “Oh, you know what? I’m going to try to do my job today,” and then you don’t, and you come up the next day. I’m going to try to do my job again today. Then, you don’t, right? So imagine that’s exactly what’s happening with diversity, as it pertains to all corporate industries, they keep trying and trying, and trying but the problem is there’s no accountability because there’s nothing else in that company that they try to do. They either do it or don’t.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, it’s a mandate or it’s not.
D’Wayne Edwards:
And so to me, that’s really my soapbox is when is diversity going to be as important as a company making money? When is diversity going to be as important as that CEO or any C-suite tied to their compensation? When is it going to be held accountable by individuals or corporation? Until that happens, it will always be something that they’re trying to do, and it will always be in single digits. It’s below 5% now, in all design industries, now that’s unacceptable, but until those corporations start to create some measures and take it seriously, then it will change, but until then, it just will be an afterthought.
Debbie Millman:
Well, I think though it’s sad to say the power lies with the people buying the products of those corporations to hold them accountable for these types of … and that’s the only way things are going to change. That’s the only reason that any of the corporations are behaving in any more sustainable manner. It’s because consumers don’t want to buy things that are unsustainable as much as they used to
D’Wayne Edwards:
You’re absolutely correct. The consumer has all the power.
Debbie Millman:
Yup.
D’Wayne Edwards:
They don’t realize they have all the power.
Debbie Millman:
Hopefully, people listening will start to feel that a little bit more.
D’Wayne Edwards:
I hope so.
Debbie Millman:
D’Wayne, the last thing I want to talk to you about is the result of your many different talents and passions sort of coming together in the creation of JEMS.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
And JEMS stands for the Jan Ernst Matzeliger Studio, who was he and why the name JEMS?
D’Wayne Edwards:
So he was an amazing man in 1883, he revolutionized the footwear industry?
Debbie Millman:
1883, I want my listeners to hear, not 1983, 1883.
D’Wayne Edwards:
1883. He was a cobbler and he made shoes in Lynn, Massachusetts, and he was making 50 pairs a day. The whole industry was make … the equipment was making 50 pairs a day, and he felt there was a better way. For the next few years, he created his own machine. It’s called the Automated Lasting Machine. Those 50 pairs a day evolved to 700 pairs a day, based on his patent that he got approval for. On March 20th, 1883, he revolutionized the footwear industry, here is a Black man in Lynn, Massachusetts doing it, and unfortunately, he only lived about six more years before he passed, so he never really got a chance to see his invention really revolutionizing industry completely. He has been someone that has been lost in our history books.
I can’t remember when he received his stamp but it was maybe 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but that was over 130 something years ago, he did that. So, he’s just now getting his due from quote-unquote, a stamp, about 30 years ago. When 2020 occurred and all the terrible things that happened with George Floyd and other senseless murders, corporations started to say, “Hey, we need to figure out a way to be more supportive of Black communities.” When major corporations, footwear companies, footwear stores, when they looked at, “Okay, how can we diversify our vendor base?” They realized they didn’t have any Black footwear brands. So, they reached out to me and said, “Hey, could you help us with this?”
DSW was one of those brands that we talked to and we shared, “Hey, we have an idea of diversifying this industry. We are training and developing future talent here in Detroit now, that can be better prepared to create their own brands and have their own success in our industry.” So I said, “Hey, what if we created a footwear factory that produced product for Black footwear companies.” So they said they love the idea and they supported it with an investment, and they invested into this factory that we called JEMS. We named it after Jan because it’s his acronym for his name. So initials for his name. Then, we added the S for studio, but we wanted to call it JEMS because that’s what these talented people are. They are coveted people that don’t exist, that we’re helping bring to life, and we want them to be treated as special as they are.
We also want them to create special products as well, that honors who they are, and it utilizes Jan’s original process, a form of his original process that he pioneered over 130 something years ago. The factory is being constructed now. We’ll have our grand opening March 20th on the 140th anniversary of him, receiving his patent is when we will open the factory.
Debbie Millman:
That’s incredible. D’Wayne, that’s just incredible. So JEMS is going to be the first Black owned footwear factory in the United States, and it will be providing young, aspiring Black designers an opportunity to create their own brands and see them come to fruition. Is that correct?
D’Wayne Edwards:
Yes and be sold at DSW.
Debbie Millman:
And be sold exclusively at DSW.
D’Wayne Edwards:
For DSW to have that vision, that is what we talked about a little bit earlier, putting their money where their mouth is, right? They recognized that didn’t exist in their supply chain and they concretely wanted to do something about it. That’s what I’m talking about. Whether it was working with me or working with someone else, do something about it.
Debbie Millman:
Right.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Don’t just say, “Oh, it’d be great if we had this or had that.” The good folks at DSW was like, “Yeah, this is important to us and we’re going to make this come to life.”
Debbie Millman:
D’Wayne, thank you for making so much work that matters. Thank you for doing so many things that matter, and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.
D’Wayne Edwards:
Thank you very much. This was a great conversation, it made me cry a few times, reminiscing on some things, but thank you very much for this opportunity to share it with you and your audience.
Debbie Millman:
My absolute honor. To read more about D’Wayne’s work, you can go to pensolelewis.com. That’s P-E-N-S-O-L-E-L-E-W-I-S dot com. This is the 18th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening and remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.